Madden '08, sports titles in general, move to real-time play

Electronic Arts has gone the extra mile with their next-gen iterations of sports titles. They've birthed a partnership with ESPN to dramatically increase real-time content. If you ask us, this may actually force EA to build yearly games with actual gameplay tweaks and enhancements instead of updated rosters and slight graphical boosts. Let us explain.

Starting with the summer's release of Madden '08, if you've got one of them fancy high-speed internet connections, you can have streaming information directly impact your gameplay experience. It's going to be like fantasy baseball, or whatever those fake online things are. If a player gets injured, guess what? He won't be on the team in your game. If it's raining in such-and-such stadium for real, it's going to be pretty wet for you in the game, too. On the flipside, stat increases will crop up to reflect a player who's having an unexpected hot season.

Some games have already implemented some of these elements, allowing gamers to get sports news displayed as a ticker or podcast during their gaming sessions. While there will be a lot of people praising the innovations to bring sports games closer to real-life, there will be those who cry foul. Where do you guys stand? Is this a good move, or will it hinder the experience for you?

New Splinter Cell direction will work, say Ubisoft

Having seen the scans of the new Splinter Cell game, it was disturbing to see that shadows and darkness has been thrown out of the window. In its place we saw bustling streets full of people and an inconspicuous Sam, without his trademark goggles. Don’t despair though, because Ubisoft are confident that Conviction is the way forward.

Speaking to Gamesindustry.biz, Splinter Cell producer Mathieu Ferland had the following to say:

“We’ve been working very closely with the fans from the beginning. Their first reaction was, ‘What’s going on? Where’s Sam?’ And then they discovered these new possibilities, this new mechanic and they said, ‘That looks awesome. I want to play it.’”

He did admit though that should the game not go down well with the public, things can be reversed for the next iteration, back to what we are used to.

“It’s not a one-way direction. You can always go back and do different things, having Sam in a new position, or a different character to explore light-and-shadow gameplay. To us, it’s a nice way to expand the brand.”

Ferland pointed out that the Ubidays event held in Paris last week showed Conviction, which received positive feedback from those at the event.

It is a big risk by Ubisoft to suddenly change the direction that the series was headed, although it’s nice to see something different coming to the table. Whether it works or not remains to be seen, but at least it is something new, and definitely something to look forward to.

New DIRT pre-order goodies revealed

Codemasters has announced that those who place pre-orders on Colin McRae: DIRT will get some exclusive in-game content. Pre-ordering players will receive a code to unlock 10 additional cars as well as access to exclusive videos featuring Travis Pastrana (whom we're guessing is famous). It's unknown if this code will unlock cars that can be obtained in other ways or if the content will really be exclusive to those with pre-orders. The 10 cars are:

• Subaru Impreza WRX-RA STI version II
• Toyota Celica GT-FOUR
• Peugeot 205 T16
• Lancia Delta S4
• Icker Jimco buggy
• McMillin Racing Car
• Kamaz 4911
• MAN TGA
• Freightliner Century Class S/T
• Kenworth T2000

So, is that enough to make you get your pre-order on?

Call of Duty 4 details revealed

If you simply cannot wait for more news about Call of Duty 4, then prepare to be excited as some details regarding both single and multiplayer game modes have been revealed in PC Gamer. Yes, that’s a PC magazine and they are probably talking about the PC version, but chances are the same applies to the 360 version, so hit the jump to check it out.

If you have ever played Rainbow Six: Vegas and loved the way your character gained stats with experience points and persistent character statistics, then it will come as great news to you that CoD 4 will have something similar. A kill will gain you two points, a headshot will gain you three points and an assist (where you badly wound someone but another player finishes him off) will net you one point. You will unlock new ranks, skins and weapons for your character, just like Vegas.

There will also be hardpoints dotted about the maps, in both single and multiplayer. An example given is a radio that calls in an air-strike. If your team can capture it, a helicopter will appear and attack the enemy with its rockets and machine guns. Once the attack has finished, the hardpoint will return neutral again. This is similar to Battlefield 2, which had a similar idea with massive air-strikes being called into play.

A new game mode for the single player is also being put in. Titled “Realism”, it will see one shot killing someone instantly. Apparently this was modded in to the PC versions, but now Infinity Ward are including the mode from the get-go.

Finally, no vehicles will be in the multiplayer part of the game. CoD 3 had them, but thankfully CoD 4 is returning to the way CoD 2 was. The reasoning behind it:

“We want to keep the maps small, so there will be always intense action. If we made maps bigger so they could include vehicles, they’d become less interesting for infantry combat, and that’s what we want to focus on. In singleplayer however, you will get to use vehicles. There’s one mission on which you get to be a gunner in a Cobra assault helicopter, and inflict some serious damage on the enemy below you. These kind of levels provide some welcome variety from the intense infantry missions”

It’s true that CoD 3 became a lot less personal thanks to the gigantic maps and the introduction of vehicles in the multiplayer. It’ll be nice to see the game returning to its roots, and with Infinity Ward back at the helm, this game is sure to do multiplayer properly again.

You can check out the trailer for CoD 4 here, or head to the Marketplace and download it from there.

Bungie: Graphical Improvements Coming To Halo 3

One thing a lot of people have bitched about after the Halo 3 multiplayer beta, are the graphics. With games like Gears of War, it was easy to be a little uninspired by what Halo 3 had to offer. Next-Gen recently sat down with Bungie’s Frank O’Connor to ask him about this, along with a few other questions about Halo 3. In response to the graphics, O’Conner had the following to say:

“We think that the final aesthetic look of our game will be judged at launch in September and in part based on the more intense single player spaces. We’re also focused on maintaining the Halo character and atmosphere in our visual design – we’re competing with ourselves, and not simply trying to match the aesthetic of other games. We think that folks will be happy with Halo 3’s graphical polish come September.

We have a long time to polish and iterate on the largely complete game at this point. We’ll be working on some big ticket items as well as making sure that the little details, like decorators and shaders are all in place. Lighting and atmospherics are going to be big keystones in our look and feel, and those really haven’t been shown except in multiplayer to this point.”

4 months isn’t a long time to be adding new graphical effects to a game - especially when they are entering the home stretch and trying to squash all the bugs and get it ready to ship. I guess we’ll find out in September if the graphics live up to expectations.

UT3 shall be the prettiest of them all

In the latest issue of the Official Xbox Magazine Epic discusses everything Unreal Tournament 3 and says that the game will look graphically better than Gears of War. Epic says that the Unreal Engine 3 has been tweaked and improved for use on the 360 since Gears launched and they're taking full advantage of its capabilities. Lead designer Steven Polge's even goes as far as to say that UT3, "it's Gears on crack. Cover is for wimps!". OXM also confirmed the game's vehicle count, talks about the control scheme, and confirmed that UT3 will include four player campaign co-op over Xbox Live. But we're just excited to see how much prettier UT3 can actually get, because Gears already set the bar quite high.